


Oasis

by Luddleston



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 08:24:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luddleston/pseuds/Luddleston
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos takes Cecil out for a drive in the middle of the night to stargaze.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oasis

**Author's Note:**

> First actual work in this series, which is weird, all the rest is just jumbled headcanon and meta about Carlos's feelings for Cecil and what Cecil look like, etc. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

It’s a Saturday night and Carlos is behind the wheel of the pickup truck he normally only uses to cart large amounts of scientific equipment from place to place. Cecil is next to him, glancing out the back window as Night Vale turns to a blot on the horizon behind them and the sky opens up to clouds and stars and an actual atmosphere. The air starts to smell clearer, and Cecil doesn’t seem used to it, but Carlos takes deep breaths and leans an arm out the open window, his perfect hair blowing back in the wind. 

Cecil hasn’t been out of Night Vale in years. His job normally mandates his presence in the town, and since it’s desert on all sides, Cecil doesn’t find much reason to leave. But Carlos drives them to the middle of the desert, where the sky is so big, Cecil feels like it’s more apt to swallow him whole than usual. But he trusts Carlos, who rests a comforting hand on his knee and smiles at him for a brief moment. That single smile is enough to turn his insides to jelly, and Cecil takes the hand on his knee in one of his and sighs contentedly, choosing to stare at Carlos instead of out the window. Carlos does not appear to mind. 

When Carlos pulls off the road and parks, they are a few miles out of Night Vale and Cecil can’t even see the town any longer. The night is clear and the wind is cold, and he’s glad for the jacket he’s wearing (it’s Carlos’s, and it smells of the scientist, and Cecil fears that if he breathes its scent in for too long, he’ll intoxicate himself). Carlos gives Cecil’s hand a squeeze before opening his door and getting out of the truck. 

“What exactly are we out here for?” Cecil asks, his voice sounding very loud in the quiet desert. Carlos is behind the truck, sitting on the ledge of the bed and spreading out a thick blanket that Cecil didn’t know was back there. Apparently, Carlos has some secrets of his own. 

Carlos pats the blanket next to him and Cecil obligingly hops onto the bed of the truck, following Carlos’s gaze up to the stars. “It’s hard to see them in Night Vale, sometimes,” Carlos points out. It’s true, what with all the ominous clouds of doom and weird colors on the sky and sometimes the lightning that fills up the whole sky and makes it seem like there is nothing but light. The stars sometimes are blotted out with all of that. They seem much brighter out here, even more so than on clear nights in Night Vale, probably because Cecil and Carlos are so far away from all the city lights. 

“So you wanted to show me the stars?” Cecil asks. 

Carlos makes a quiet noise of assent and puts one arm around Cecil, then the other, and just holds him there for a while. Neither say anything, because there is nothing that needs to be said. “I’m cold,” Cecil eventually whispers, and Carlos pulls the thick blanket around the both of them, like a cocoon. This only draws him closer to Cecil, and both of them end up in one tangled mess of limbs inside the blanket with only their heads peeking out. They must look ridiculous, but neither really care. 

“Wish we could stay out here until morning,” Carlos says longingly, but he has work tomorrow and Cecil has work tomorrow. Still, it’s tempting to stay curled into each other, breathing the same air, which, pleasantly, neither smells nor tastes of ozone. Carlos starts to rub his fingers against the nape of Cecil’s neck and down his shoulders, gently working on the little knots there, and Cecil kisses him on the cheek, so softly he almost doesn’t feel it at first. 

They will have to go back eventually, but for now, they enjoy the paradise that is the back of Carlos’s old pickup truck and a blanket and each other.  


End file.
